Welcome to the best KC Chiefs site on the internet. You can view any post as a visitor, but you are required to register before you can post. Click the register link above, it only takes 30 seconds to start chatting with Chiefs fans from all over the world! Enjoy your stay!

Webnews: Report: Justin Houston arrives at Chiefs camp

0

By Darin Gantt
Another potential holdout has died a whimpering death. According to Terez Paylor of the Kansas City Star, Chiefs linebacker Justin Houston has reported to Chiefs camp. We noted last week that Houston wasn’t expected to hold out, even though he wants a knew deal. One of the most underpaid members of the Chiefs, Houston would…Read more…

Threethings come to mind here. Either Houston and the Chiefs are close to a deal and Houston reported in good faith it would be done. Two after the Charles signing hapened so quick the the Chiefs told Houston that they will not be giving him a new contract and to play under this one, or he they will bench his butt losing any chance of getting a new contract. Third Houston is a fool. He just lost over 80K for not showig up to OTA's and then caved when he probably had the most leverage to getting a deal done.

I think a couple of other factors may have been in play as well......Firstly, if Houston held out I don't think he would have enough "time served" to become a free agent next year. Not sure what the deadline was for that, but I think it was pretty soon. Losing that ability would have been REALLY DUMB. Second, while he did lose $70,000 by skipping OTA's I think it is possible that he felt that was a hit he could afford to take to "make his point". Holding out now was going to cost him A LOT more than holding out from OTA's. In addition, I think it is just possible that he realized that whether with the Chiefs or another team so long as he continued to play well he was eventually going to make some pretty damned big money and that he decided that holding out past OTA's might damage his potential value on the Free Agent market. And of course, I had never heard that he was actually willing to go to full blown hold-out mode. Lastly there is the example Alex Smith has set. You'd have to be pretty arrogant to see how Alex Smith is handling a similar situation and decide to hold out thinking that the Chiefs are going to take care of you before they take care of Alex Smith.

All in all, I'm glad he has done the right thing. He would be a complete fool not to realize the Chiefs want to keep him. And he would be an equal fool not to realize that the Chiefs have some SERIOUS salary cap problems.

If he plays well this year (and doesn't suffer a career-ending injury) then the worst that can happen is he get's franchised for BIG MONEY next year.....more likely he gets a FAT new contract from the Chiefs or becomes a Free Agent and gets a FAT new contract.

If I were in his shoes the potential downside would have been far too great to justify a real hold-out.

I think a couple of other factors may have been in play as well......Firstly, if Houston held out I don't think he would have enough "time served" to become a free agent next year. Not sure what the deadline was for that, but I think it was pretty soon. Losing that ability would have been REALLY DUMB. Second, while he did lose $70,000 by skipping OTA's I think it is possible that he felt that was a hit he could afford to take to "make his point". Holding out now was going to cost him A LOT more than holding out from OTA's. In addition, I think it is just possible that he realized that whether with the Chiefs or another team so long as he continued to play well he was eventually going to make some pretty damned big money and that he decided that holding out past OTA's might damage his potential value on the Free Agent market. And of course, I had never heard that he was actually willing to go to full blown hold-out mode. Lastly there is the example Alex Smith has set. You'd have to be pretty arrogant to see how Alex Smith is handling a similar situation and decide to hold out thinking that the Chiefs are going to take care of you before they take care of Alex Smith.

All in all, I'm glad he has done the right thing. He would be a complete fool not to realize the Chiefs want to keep him. And he would be an equal fool not to realize that the Chiefs have some SERIOUS salary cap problems.

If he plays well this year (and doesn't suffer a career-ending injury) then the worst that can happen is he get's franchised for BIG MONEY next year.....more likely he gets a FAT new contract from the Chiefs or becomes a Free Agent and gets a FAT new contract.

If I were in his shoes the potential downside would have been far too great to justify a real hold-out.

Think that this is the bigger picture in the long run. Sometimes you have to handle getting burned doing the right thing. The Chiefs just simply did not have the money to make everyone happy right now. Things will change next offseason, and there's plenty of teams next year that will be trying to sign him.